Square Peg Mole Hole Interview

Square Peg Mole Hole Interview

“If I can dream that I dream / and dream anything dreamable / can I dream I am awake ? and why do that… Ginsberg

I sat down in the white room
with only two black chairs;

“What is it you would like to do for employment?”
Asked the Displaced Housewife Counselor

“Interpret dreams,” I said.

“Lofty goal,”
she replied with scathing sarcasm.

“Yes, I want to know why last night I dreamt I was in
a beautiful museum shaping mashed potatoes into
the bust of Copernicus and why there was red jello
in the lake with a cow headed turtle doing the back stroke
carrying a cheese knife?”

“I’m sorry, we don’t give grants for fortune tellers —
nor lunatics,” her left foot tapping hard, or was that a hoof?

“But I must know what these abstract dreams mean –
they startle me all night.”

She looked at me behind eyes full of vaseline,
“any other interests of career potential?”

“A poet”, I said, “I have always wanted to be one.”

“Sorry she yawned, “we have no grants for poet wannabees,
unless of course you are published.

“No, she’s not”, my voice did not come from me,
but from a mouse dressed in a tuxedo
scurrying into a hole in the women’s shoe.

“Then you don’t qualify, silly girl.” She thrust her forearm
on her knee and there was a heavy sundial taped to her wrist.

“How about crafts? I love making collages.”

“So do school children, that’s not a life skill,” she scolded.

“How much time do I have left?” I pondered

“Not enough! You better find what you want to do
with your life. I’m afraid there is no place you fit into
except in your own dreams.”

“I know, that’s the problem, that’s why I am here.
I am a square peg in a mole hole.” I told her.

“You mean round peg, square hole,” she corrected.

“See what I mean? I can’t even fit into the right cliche.”

“Yes, you are truly displaced my dear. So displaced I cannot
place you. Your non-conformity voids you from any reality
based employment program we offer. I suggest you would be
better served to see a spiritualist in Cassadaga and let them conjure
up your future. Perhaps Louis Carroll is the only spirit who might
understand and empathize with your dilemma, but he only liked
little girls, so I suppose he won’t be of much help.” She rose from the
chair with cobwebs attached to her back and unscrewed her head
then folded it neatly into her purse. “I can no longer think about you,”
she said in a muffled voice through plaid canvas, “I must rest my brain,
the very thought of you and this conversation is making my neurons
fire in gobules of pink hummus. I must shut down
I must shut down
I must shut down or
I will go crackers.” The counselor broke off her leg and used it as a paddle
to swim her headless form across the lake of red jello,
halfway across she filled with water
and her leg floated away.

My mouth remained open while the cow headed turtle
offered me moldy swiss cheese and said, “you really should wake
up now,” It’s black tongue licked it’s right ear. “This interview has
commenced and you are sleeping through life. The turtle removed
it’s carapace and put the moldy cheese inside a small cavity next to
its’ heart. When opened, a great throbbing light came through parted
windows causing me to squint and open my eyes. I looked about the
room and saw it was time to wake and meet with the woman
assigned to help displaced Housewives.
Oh,  why could I not find a job getting paid to tell people my dreams?
Why was life so structured with rules and infractions?

I walked to the closet and looked for my shoes,
they sat quietly and did not object as I slipped them on,
they knew we had a purpose.
When I stood up I heard the hinge of a distant door closing,
I looked around,
and there next to my left shoe
was the mouse in the tuxedo smiling.
He held up crossed fingers,
threw a square peg over his shoulder
and cantered away on a horse hoof.
My shoes looked at me,
I looked at them
and the three of us burst out laughing …